


overwhelm the heart with the heat

by westminsterabi



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Homophobia, M/M, bill macy being an evil shit, bill macy being horrible, depictions of violent homophobia, eventual sieren, eventual siren, how kieren got banned from the legion, it gets better at the end i promise, kieren just has to deal with some...shit, poor kieren :(, rick macy being kind of oblivious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 02:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10401951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westminsterabi/pseuds/westminsterabi
Summary: It’s Rick’s face, the way that it looked in that moment, when his words said “I love you” but his tone said andI wish that I didn’t. And when he remembers that exact intonation, the expression on Rick’s face, Kieren is furious, because of all things, no matter how afraid Kieren gets, no matter how much he fears for his own life or physical safety one thing Kieren Walker has never been is ashamed.-how kieren got banned from the legion for life, how he got a job at the legion, and how he took his boyfriend and the love of his second life back to the legion. title from "dancing on the grave" by passion pit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to phoenix dandyholmes, my beta! you can listen to a playlist for this chapter [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/suitebergamasque/playlist/4fWQp04RYVDrcP4rLlJO0n).

Kieren Walker’s first kiss tastes like brandy and charcoal. He will realize, later, that predictable as the first taste was (he and Rick have been nursing a bottle of Landy VS for about six hours) he could also have easily traced the acrid, bitter sting of the second taste, which was more out of place. His right hand is smeared with black residue from a smeary sketch of Rick’s face that he’s done in his sketchbook.

Later, Kieren will wonder how an innocent kiss that tasted of liquor and drawing materials went so completely off the rails.

Rick and Kieren are seventeen and almost seventeen, respectively. The day they kiss in the woods is a rare clear Lancashire day. They have spread a blanket in a clearing and quaintly brought a picnic basket stuffed with a half-dozen mince pies Kieren’s mum has made them, along with other assorted treats and, of course, the bottle of brandy.

It is not entirely unexpected, as Kieren quietly admires Rick’s jawline and sketches it out in even, careful strokes. He feels a lightheadedness spreading through him, and his charcoal quivers a bit. It lends the drawing a slightly impressionistic quality that Kieren has tried to achieve while sober, but never quite managed to  _ get.  _ And Rick is looking at him, of course. Rick is always looking at him, and Kieren wonders if he looks at Rick the same way, with that lightness in his eyes, that gentle smile and the warmth of a face that is completely open, crease-free.

Kieren hopes so.

There’s a heavy quality to the air that day, and it clings to the paper. It doesn’t feel quite damp, but it doesn’t feel quite dry either, and the charcoal smears across it more readily than Kieren thinks it would have done, otherwise. He’s bent over the paper, dabbing his pinky with a tiny bit of saliva to work at the edge of Rick’s hairline, when he looks up and sees Rick’s face six inches from his own.

Then Rick is leaning in and Kieren is leaning in and the two of them are kissing with a passion that has been pent-up since primary school, since Kieren first learned what the word  _ gay  _ meant and tried to reason with himself about how that could not possibly describe him. There’s Rick’s tongue, and that bizarre taste, the cheap brandy they’ve been drinking and, somehow, the black dust on Kieren’s fingertips. Rick is soft and tender, not what you would think from looking at him.

Kieren thinks that he has died and gone to heaven.

He doesn’t really think that, but there’s something about this that feels just a touch unreal, as though out of a dream. He has never dreamed anything this natural and ordinary, though. In his dreams it never felt this  _ right,  _ like when the pieces of a drawing just seem to slot together as though your hand has made something perfect of its own accord.

In Kieren’s dreams something always feels off, and he always thought that was a sign. Bill Macy interrupts them. Their kisses go wrong, they are incompatible, Rick tastes bitter and disgusting. One of them breaks it off.

None of that happens.

Rick smells like aftershave and Old Spice deodorant. Kieren doesn’t need to shave; he hasn’t started even to grow stubble yet. It will come, one day, he thinks, but somehow that has become less of a source of insecurity in the space between his face and Rick Macy’s.

When they finally pull away, slowly and gently, Kieren looks into Rick’s eyes. Rick blinks a couple times, and smiles.  

“I’ve wanted you to do that for ages.” Kieren cracks a crooked smile and thinks of all their missed opportunities, all the times that he might have been able to kiss Rick Macy and has never had the guts to do it. It doesn’t matter, not now, not that they’ve done it once and presumably, he hopes, will do it again. And again. (And countless times, and a thousand times forever and god Kieren is already planning their wedding, isn’t that  _ pathetic _ )

Kieren leans and falls gently back onto the blanket. He’s looking up at Rick, and picturing fifty more years with this boy, with a house in Lancaster with a yard, and flowers, and a golden lab, and it’s like a slap in the face to remember that Bill Macy will not, never in a million years, allow that to happen. He will blow a shotgun in one of their faces (most likely Kieren’s) before he allows it, and that thought makes Kieren shiver with horror, to remember that Bill Macy is filled with enough murderous homophobic rage to kill one or both of them before allowing his son to run off with another boy.

“Ren?” Kieren blinks and looks back up at Rick. “You’re not going to that bad place, are you?” Rick is leaning back on his hands, propped up and staring out into the distance. A cloud drifts in front of the sun and Kieren shivers.

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” says Kieren.

“You always think the worst of everything. No matter what happens you always think about how it could go wrong.”

“I do not.”

“You do. Can’t you just live right now, in this moment? Can’t there just be us, right now?”

“The world doesn’t work that way, Rick,” he says. He inhales deeply. His hands are resting on his chest, and he can feel them rise and fall.

“That’s what I mean. Just…pretend it does.”

“Pretend that your kissing me isn’t going to have potential repercussions once we walk back into town?”

“Not unless you go about telling everyone.”

Kieren’s blood runs cold. Of course, he couldn’t expect anything different. Of course they won’t tell anyone. Maybe he’ll tell Jem, but then Jem would run her mouth at school and—no, best not tell anyone, and that thought is like a knife in his chest.

“I’m sorry it’s got to be this way,” says Rick.

“No,” Kieren says. “I get it. I know. I just…wish…you know.”

“I do,” says Rick, with an unusual softness playing about his lips. “What do you say we pack up?”

“All right, yeah.” Kieren grabs a piece of stray plastic and stuffs it back in their basket. He pauses, watching Rick fold in the edges of the blanket. “Rick,” he says. Rick looks up, quizzical, curious. “Rick, I—never mind.”

Rick shrugs and throws the dusty blanket over his shoulder, headed off in completely the wrong direction.

“Village is that way.” Rick snorts and about-faces.

“What would you do without me?” asks Kieren with a chuckle.

“Dunno. Be long dead, probably.”

“Nah, you’d be in much better books with your dad.”

“He’s not all bad, Ren.”

Kieren’s face darkens. “Really? Because bad? That’s all I’ve really seen of him.”

“If you only knew him—“

“Well, it’s your dad’s fault I don’t know him, isn’t it?” He looks at the ground, where there’s a single dandelion growing. The thought of Bill Macy makes his pulse pound. He looks back up at Rick, who looks pathetic, like a kicked puppy. “Your dad is the one who tracked me down after I picked out nine songs just for you, when we were fourteen and burned them on a cd for you, and screamed at me in the road with  a shotgun in my face because his impulse control is just that bad. He didn’t even get arrested.”  

“That’s because—“

“That’s because what? That’s because I’m gay? Well, so’s his son!”

“He doesn’t see it that way—“

“Your dad is a hypocrite.” Kieren bites his lip and can feel tears welling up. He doesn’t want to fight but somehow the words keep crawling up his throat, nasty, cruel words, demanding to be said. Rick can’t help who his father is, and yet Kieren keeps going. “He’s always hated me, since we were in primary school he’s hated me. Just admit it, he hates me for no good reason. Your dad is a bastard. He hates me because I made you a mix cd. As if that’s a crime.”

Rick says nothing.

Kieren storms off, picnic basket slung in his elbow, wanting nothing more than to sink into the ground because  _ god  _ this was supposed to be the best day of his life and of course he’s ruined it. Of course it’s his fault. Because it is. He hears steps coming after him and Rick (whose legs are longer) touches his shoulder and says, “wait, Ren.”

Kieren turns around and looks at him and realizes that staying angry at Rick for longer than about five minutes is impossible for him, because his gaze is too warm and it makes Kieren’s guts feel as though they’re kind of melting, the idea of staying angry and walking away and not talking to him makes his heart seize up.

“Kieren. I’m sorry. I’m sorry my dad’s that way it’s just…I can’t do anything about it. I just, have to live with it. I’d trade dads if I could but I can’t and somehow I feel stuck. I want to be with you. And one day I can. One day there can be us without parents and without all of Roarton judging us but…today’s not that day. I’m sorry.”

Kieren blinks and looks at Rick and nods. His face twitches and he wishes that he could just let the tears pour down his face but they won’t come.

“I know.”

“Just because your family don’t give a fuck doesn’t mean—doesn’t mean everyone can just be like you.”

“What am I like?” he asks with an edge in his voice.

“You know, you don’t really care what people think.”

“Oh, I care plenty. They just hate me, and I have to deal with that.”

Rick throws his arm over Kieren’s shoulders and pulls him close. Kieren hears his own heart thud, and Rick’s as well. He wishes that he never had to move. 

-

Later, Kieren is in his bed, covers thrown over his legs and drawing in his sketchbook. It’s Rick, just like it always is (well, not always. Sometimes it’s Jem. Sometimes it’s the view outside his window. It can be lots of things but well, it really is always Rick.) This time, it really is Rick’s face, pensive, sweet, not overthinking things like he always seems to do.

Kieren has never been incredible at sketching from memory, not like he can do from life or photographs. And yet Rick flows from him, because he’s seen Rick’s face enough times that it really is lodged in his memory, as well as any model or any reference photo. Rick’s squarish face, so different from Kieren’s own self-portraits. His own face is heart-shaped, and since he’s been his own only cooperative model for years his hand tends towards that, just out of habit.

But Rick’s jaw is strong and square and Kieren’s hand knows it well enough to sketch its lines without overthinking. There’s his pointed chin, the straight, nearly parallel lines up to his ears, the serious smile and the probing eyes that Kieren fell in love with so many years ago. His eyebrows are arched in a look of mocking surprise.

To Kieren, staring out at the dusk light, Rick’s face feels as though it demands to be drawn. So he draws it again, with even pencil strokes, until the sun peaks back over the rolling Lancashire hills. Kieren checks the clock on his night table, realizes that he’s been sketching all night, and rolls over and off his bed. He pulls the soft t-shirt he sleeps in every night over his shoulders, his still-slim shoulders, nowhere near as broad as Rick’s, and he puts on a well-worn wool jumper and a pair of jeans.

Kieren is out the door before anyone else in the house is even awake, no breakfast, no coffee, no tea. The clouds have rolled back in and although it’s several minutes past dawn, the light is diffuse and the village is still dark. Sketchbook in hand, Kieren plants himself on the soggy grass at the top of Roarton’s tallest hill and, ignoring the damp soaking through his trousers, begins to sketch the houses below.

It’s not long before Kieren wishes that he had a set of acrylics to capture the perfect dawn light this morning, but he makes do with a few soft graphite pencils.

He’s probably up here because of the pounding in his heart, the way that thoughts of his own worthlessness dogs him. Of course, it’s by no fault of his that Rick won’t be with him publicly, any more than it’s his fault that he fell in love with Rick (perhaps, however, that is his fault). This thought, this constant anxiety, has been chasing Kieren since yesterday afternoon and it seems that the only thing quelling it is the movement of his pencil.

The sun peaks over Roarton village and starts creeping down the hills, hitting the cemetery, the church, the Legion, the rest of the village. Kieren’s college is a mile away, but his first class isn’t for two hours and that’s plenty of time to continue wandering until he manages to get his brain to shut up. He dampens his finger and smudges the top of the church, creating a blocky, dark shadow on the roof, then uses a pencil to darken the outline.

Kieren’s never been too neurotic about his sketches, which has in many ways come as a blessing. While other students have always fussed over tiny things, this hair or that hair out of place, always caring about details, Kieren has managed to keep loose. His art is the one thing he’s not insecure about; he knows he’s best in his year, he does it for himself, not to impress people. Kieren paints and draws because he doesn’t know any other way to stop his brain running off in six different over-critical directions at once. That pays off, because it means that he lives with a pencil in his hand. 

He runs a smudgy hand through his hair, leaving tiny gray streaks he can’t see, and checks his watch. Time to get a move on.

Kieren’s boots squish in the mud and he nearly slides once on his way down the hill, but catches himself and nearly sprains his left wrist in the process. He wipes his muddy hand on the seat of his trousers and immediately regrets it. He’s not a messy person, just a neat freak who’s drifted a bit in the past couple years. He wonders if anyone sees him ambling down the path and immediately pegs him as gay, because you know what, it seems as though people just have the ability to  _ see  _ that, and target him because of it. That’s given him a bitter outlook on the world, a desire to stop existing in physical space and just be completely invisible. He understands Jem’s impulse; he’s always understood it. 

Thank god, he’s out of here in eighteen months. That’s not so bad. One more year of sixth-form and then, if he’s lucky, art school. London. God. He’ll leave Roarton, come back on the holidays sometimes, but have a flat and go to pride parades in June and sometimes go to gay bars. He’ll have lots of friends, none of whom will tease him for being—Kieren doesn’t even like thinking the word. And Rick will come visit him and they’ll hold hands and kiss in broad daylight, and everything will be so much better.

He smiles at the very thought and half-walks half-stumbles to the base of the hill. Eighteen months isn’t very long. He’s spent two and a half years under Bill Macy’s torment, which means he’s over half done. Kieren skids to the base of the hill, hits asphalt, and takes the main road through Roarton to Leyland and to the school. It’s not a long walk. He likes having the time to think to himself, and this early, at about seven in the morning, no one is on the road. He sticks his earbuds in and puts his music on shuffle. 

 

_ He knew what he wanted to say / but he didn’t want to word it…  _

 

He’s still a half-hour early for Illustration, which is the first place he has to be in the morning. He checks his watch again.

The canteen is open, so Kieren ducks in and buys himself a terrible cup of coffee and a few slices of toast that he’s too queasy to finish. The butter tastes three-quarters of the way to rancid and Kieren isn’t in the mood, not on a Monday, not after yesterday. Out of habit he runs a hand through his hair before remembering that, of course, he tripped earlier, and that hand is covered in mud. He sighs and resigns himself to walking about all day with dirty hair. Not as though he’ll get teased  _ worse  _ for that.

Honestly, sixth-form hasn’t been bad at all. It’s when he wanders back into the village that Gary (who is honestly far too old to be bullying teenagers) and the rest of them chase him down and give him roughings-up. Everyone in Leyland is just busy getting their A-levels, minding their own business, trying to move on to bigger and brighter things without, Kieren thinks as he takes a sip of his coffee, getting poisoned by the poor-quality Styrofoam they serve this stuff in.

He pulls out his sketchbook and doodles the man at the register, and then the slightly goth girl sitting two chairs away, before she catches him staring and shoots him a dirty look and a v-sign. It’s time for class, anyway.

-

Rick meets him after school, which is unusual enough to be a surprise.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Come to see you,” says Rick, and Kieren just arches an eyebrow. “Felt bad after yesterday.”

“Didn’t mean you had to make the trip to Leyland on my account.”

“Yeah it does.”

Kieren shrugs. “Well, you’re here, why don’t we go to the pub or something?”

“The Legion?”

“No,” says Kieren with a grimace. He shakes his head. “Not there. Somewhere in Leyland. Or we could just grab a drink and head…you know.”

Rick does know.

“Or something stronger,” says Rick, patting his pocket. They’ve only smoked two or three times but Kieren will admit that he likes it better than drinking, even. Can’t draw too well when he’s drinking, but a joint has never failed to make him feel a real creative spark that’s a bit more elusive when he’s sober.

Kieren grins. “It’s a school night.”

“Not for me.”

“No, not for you,” Kieren agrees, but his mind is elsewhere. His mind is back in yesterday afternoon, in a sunny meadow, kissing Rick with tongue, doing more than kissing him—

“Ren. Ren.” Rick is passing his hand in front of Kieren’s face, in that mocking earth-to-Kier kind of way that Jem does all the time, whenever her big brother is spacing out.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Kieren, hitching his rucksack over his shoulder and following Rick off the school grounds towards the woods. What was Rick even thinking, suggesting the Legion? If the two of them had showed up there, both of them, together chances were that a call to Bill Macy would have had him down there in under two minutes with a handgun. Bill Macy never misses. He’d need one bullet to put through Kieren’s skull. Sometimes Kieren wonders if he worries too much, thinks too harshly of Bill Macy, who, after all, probably wouldn’t actually  _ murder  _ him.

Then he remembers being fourteen and answering the door to Bill Macy, who asked if Kieren’s parents were home and, when informed that they weren’t, dragged Kieren out to the street by the scruff of his neck to point a hunting rifle at Kieren’s head, told him never to touch or speak to his son again, called him a dirty queer for good measure, and stormed off.

Bill Macy probably would  _ actually  _ murder him, given the chance and appropriate motive. He had told his parents, who had had trouble believing that Bill Macy would do such a thing, because  _ god _ don’t human beings at least have some morals, until Maggie Burton from next door called his parents and told them what she’d seen. Her story had matched Kieren’s exactly. He has always liked the Burtons.

Rick must be half out of his mind to suggest that they be seen in public in the village, especially somewhere that Bill Macy spends at least half his time. If not more. Does Bill Macy actually sleep at night, or does he just nap in the Legion?

Kieren and Rick leave the school behind them and take a quick jaunt into town, where Rick, who passes for eighteen, buys a bottle of whiskey and wraps it in a paper bag. They leave the village and march up the hill, Kieren just a bit behind Rick. When Rick’s foot catches on a particularly hard patch of earth, Kieren steadies him and just that tiny bit of physical contact sets his pulse pounding again. He glances over his shoulder, around, and thanks god that no one saw that. He hates being afraid, constantly, all the time, always vigilant, but sometimes that really just cannot be avoided. Sometimes you draw an unlucky lot in life, you get to be gay in a tiny Lancashire village and fall in love with a shotgun-toting homophobe’s son and that’s just your luck. Once they pass the tree line, though, Kieren relaxes, lets the tension drop from his shoulders.

Maybe that’s why Kieren has such constant, unrelenting, pounding headaches. He keeps his tension in his shoulders and, after all, he spends most of his time hunched over a sketchbook or canvas, building up the horrific knots he always feels in his back but never does anything about.

They could, both of them, find this place while sleepwalking. It’s their space, their version of the pub, where the two of them have their own place to get pissed or draw or just spend time away from the rest of humanity. The way that most people go to the pub to get out of the house, that’s why Kieren has the cave. It’s where he runs away, when everything else is just too much and the world is screaming at him too loudly.

They’re here.

Kieren throws his rucksack haphazardly to the side and sits down cross-legged. “Let’s have it then,” he says, holding his hand out for the liquor. Rick unscrews the top and takes a swig, then passes it to Kieren. It goes down his throat hot and acrid. He nearly sputters but keeps it down. 

  
“Bit strong for you, there, Ren?” 

 

“No.” 

 

“Liar,” says Rick. Kieren laughs and smiles, open-mouthed. He can feel the whiskey going to his head. 

 

“Well, what’ve you got then?” says Kieren, staring pointedly at Rick’s pocket. Rick pulls out a paper and a plastic bag of half-crushed weed and starts rolling an ineffectual joint. 

  
“Let me do that,” says Kieren, giving it a lick, but he isn’t any better, and eventually he gives up, resigning himself to a lopsided and lumpy piece of work. Ricks laughs. 

One drinks and a few tokes later, Kieren has his second kiss. It tastes, predictably, of whiskey and weed. It’s not a bad combination. This time, it was Kieren who actually had the courage to lean into Rick and press their lips together, hoping that Rick wouldn’t act as though the golden Sunday evening they had yesterday wasn’t a mistake. He doesn’t. Instead they deepen their kisses, get bolder, as though they’re trying to breathe in every scrap of each other while there’s still time.

That’s ridiculous, they have all the time in the world. In fact, their time will just get more abundant after they can stop hiding in the shadows, after the two of them move to London or Manchester together and can have a flat together and god they can stop  _ hiding.  _ Kieren’s hand moves up the inside of Rick’s shirt and the feeling of skin on skin sends an electric sensation through him. Rick runs a hand through Kieren’s muddy, dirty hair, and then they break apart while Kieren grins at Rick sheepishly. He blinks, swallows, and says, with surprisingly little fanfare, “I love you.”

Rick smiles, looks at the ground, and says, “I love you too,” but he says it as though he’s ashamed, and that makes Kieren feel as though someone’s just run a sword through his chest.

“God, say it like you mean it,” he spits, and he grabs his rucksack, stands up, and storms out of the cave. His house isn’t far off, and Rick doesn’t follow him, not that he can hear. The door is left open and Kieren goes up to his room without checking if either Jem or his parents are home. Instead he slams the door and hears an admonishment of  _ Kier!,  _ undoubtedly from his mother. So she is home. He tosses his boots to the side, throws his rucksack on his bed, and pulls a spare 30 by 30 canvas out of his closet. He clips it into his easel, grabs a grease pencil and starts sketching.

It’s Rick’s face, the way that it looked in that moment, when his words said “I love you” but his tone said  _ and I wish that I didn’t.  _ And when he remembers that exact intonation, the expression on Rick’s face, Kieren is furious, because of all things, no matter how afraid Kieren gets, no matter how much he fears for his own life or physical safety one thing Kieren Walker has never been is  _ ashamed. _

There’s that grimace, the curve of his mouth, the sadness in his eyes. Kieren can’t express the tone in his voice, not in a painting, but he can get that face completely right. Rick isn’t even here and it’s some of his best work, he can already tell, true to life, painful as it is.

When everything’s blocked out, Kieren storms out the door of his room and fills a cup with water so he can rinse his brushes. He nearly ruins a tube of carmine by squeezing it too violently, so that half the paint comes out, but he manages to get most of it to go back in. He should really switch to jars, he’s far too violent with his tubes. Then he takes care of the other primary colors, adds black and a couple shades of pre-mixed brown to his palette for good measure, and then a dab of white. Then he adds more. You always need more white than you think.

His first stroke is violent, as if he’s trying to punch through the canvas. He might as well. Kieren squeezes the brush until his knuckles turn white. The skin tone isn’t right, but it doesn’t matter nothing matters except the way that Rick said  _ I love you too,  _ as though it was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to him.

“Rick’s here for you!” his mum yells up the stairs.

“Busy!” says Kieren, half-wanting to poke his head out the door and shout at Rick to fuck off. Can’t do that though, not in front of his mum.

The base coat of Rick’s head is nearly done, so Kieren grabs a detail brush and starts doing the shading on his neck, up his jaw, to his forehead, then starts blocking in his hair, but gets frustrated, so starts moving to the dark-blue he’s chosen for the background. He wants to scream but this is his way of screaming without the neighbors knowing because  _ god  _ he has never wanted to scream his head off as much as he does now, who knew that he could feel this incredibly angry, that he could hate Bill fucking Macy more than he already did. But here he is, hatred increasing by the minute, with every flick of his brush, every detail on Rick’s eyes that so resemble his father’s.

Kieren’s jaw sets and he can feel a tension headache coming on but he doesn’t even pause to massage his shoulders, he just keeps going. His mum calls him for dinner but he doesn’t answer until his dad comes to pound on his door and Kieren tells him, too, that he’s busy.

“Not too busy for your mum’s cooking, now. Come on down.” So Kieren does what you should never do and sticks his brush, head down, in the glass of water, and storms down the stairs to shovel in a leg of lamb to appease his mother.

“It’s your favorite,” his mum says cheerfully.

“I hate lamb,” says Jem.

“Thanks,” says Kieren acidly. He shovels a couple bites into his mouth and chews them halfheartedly, arching his eyebrows as if to say  _ good enough?  _ before leaving his dishes at the table and storming back up the stairs.

“Kieren! That’s no way to thank your mother for—“ but Kieren can’t hear the rest of what his father says because he’s slammed his door and the crack of wood against wood drowns out whatever Steve had to say.

And then Kieren can’t really stop it. It starts as one sob wracking his body. And then the tears are streaming down his cheeks, hot and clear and salty and he cannot stop them. When his father knocks gently and opens the door, what he sees is his son, lip quivering, staring at his own half-finished work, sobbing.

“Oh son, whatever it is, it’ll be all right,” Steve says. He walks over to his son and places one awkward hand on his shoulder. Suddenly Kieren, mature as he’s felt since he went to college, feels much younger and smaller than sixteen.

“No dad, it won’t,” he says, and his face crumples.

Steve’s ineffectual pats don’t do much for Kieren, who can’t help but dwell on the thought that Rick, Rick who he loves, Rick who he would lay down his life for, Rick who he would take a bullet or kill a man for, is ashamed to love him. Kieren knows, deep down, that it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the way that Bill talks every day about  _ queers  _ and has talked that way since both of them were kids. But he can’t help but connect that sense of worthlessness and guilt with himself, with making things his own fault like he always does. He blames himself, and he wishes that he didn’t. 

Kieren says none of this out loud. Instead he blows his nose loudly on the hem of his dad’s shirt while Steven wrinkles his nose, gives Kieren another worthless assurance that everything will be all right, and leaves the room after pausing for a minute in the doorway. 

Jem is next. She pokes her head into the room, eyes wide, and asks, “you all right, big bro?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” says Kieren, as though his face isn’t obviously streaked with snot and tears.

“I don’t believe you,” says Jem.

“Well, you can fuck off then,” says Kieren lightly.

“Mum says you’re not s’posed to swear in the house.”

“Mum can fuck off.”

“That’s a pound in the swear jar, Kier.”

“We have a swear jar?”

“Yeah,” says Jem. “This is it.” She sticks out her hand and Kieren sticks his tongue out at her. She giggles.

“I’m not giving you a pound.”

“If you give me a pound I won’t tell mum you said ‘fuck’ twice.” Jem sits down on Kieren’s bed and crosses her legs, smirking at him.

“You just said it there.”

“Doesn’t count, I was quoting you.” Kieren snorts. “What you so hung up about anyway?” asks Jem.

“I’m not telling.”

She pauses for a second and looks about the room. “It’s Rick Macy, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Yeah it is. I’m your little sister, I know.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. What’d he do this time?”

“Nothing.”

“Stop lyin’.”

“You’re awfully bossy for twelve.”

“I’m thirteen.”

“You’re awfully bossy for thirteen.”

“Whatever. Just tell me.”

Kieren stands up, walks to the door, and closes it. He sits back next to Jem, looks at his knees, and says, quietly, “he told me he loved me.”

Jem looks unsurprised. “What’s so bad about that?  _ You  _ love him, don’t you?”

“He said it like it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.”

Jem rolls her eyes and smirks again. “You’re exaggerating, Kier.”

“Where do you learn big words like that?”

She crosses her arms. “I’m in Year 8 now, they teach us words like ‘exaggerate’. Anyway, that’s what you’re doing. ‘Exaggerate’ means ‘represent something as being larger, greater, better, or worse than it really is,’ which is what you’re doing.”

“You’re going to ace your test.”

“Already did. Stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are. You’re the best thing that could have happened to that loser Rick Macy and he knows it. His father’s an arse, his grades are awful, he’ll be stuck in Roarton the rest of his life if he don’t do something about it and here he has this handsome artistic genius chasing after him, totally in love with him like there aren’t a thousand better boys in Roarton Valley you could be in love with. Best thing that could have happened to him, mark my words.”

“Jem.”

“What? It’s true!”

“You’re the one that’s exaggerating.”

“No I’m not, I always tell it just as it is.” Kieren considers this for a moment. “I do, and you know it,” says Jem. “Rick Macy is lucky you’re in love with him, not the other way around, and if he’s too thick to take advantage of that, it’s his problem, not yours.”

Kieren smiles halfheartedly. “You do have a way of making things sound better than they are.”

“No, I have a way of taking your messed-up head and putting it right by telling the truth, big bro. Trust your little sister. I know everything.”

“Not everything.”

“Yeah I do.”

“Yeah, okay, sure you do.”

“I have a maths test to revise for,” she says, standing up. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you’re gonna get out of here. Rick Macy will be here for the rest of his life unless he follows you. Tell me who’s  _ really _ the pathetic loser.” She gives Kieren a hard, playful jab in the chest, smirks, and walks out. She’s thirteen and already shines a thousand times brighter than Kieren does, so full of herself, so confident. All it took was giving her that metal mix cd and suddenly Jem seems to know who she is, stopped walking on her tiptoes and started bossing people around like the badass she’s always been. Kieren has no such luxury.

He stands up, and grabs his brush with the intention to start texturing Rick’s face. His brush has only lost a couple hairs from letting it soak in the water. He wipes it off, loads the dry brush with paint and starts using it to create a matte effect, which he kind of likes. Then he uses what’s left on his palette to strengthen the light around Rick’s face, so it looks like he has a kind of halo around him.

Despite all the heartache, in a way, Rick feels like Kieren’s angel, the man come to rescue him from the depth of his own self-loathing. This is why Kieren values his love so much, because sometimes it feels like the most important thing in his own pathetic, stupid life. He has always felt like Rick choosing him as a friend, as something close to a boyfriend, says something about Kieren’s inherent worth. That’s why this stings so much, because Rick’s love has always been the one thing that makes Kieren feel worthy and good constantly, all throughout his life. And Rick just took that and made it something  _ bad _ , something that causes him shame.

Kieren flips his paintbrush around and tries to punch right through Rick’s right eye. It bounces right off; not enough force. He sighs and tosses the brush aside, collapses on the bed without changing into his pyjamas. He doesn’t bother turning out the light, just lies there, sobs, and eventually drifts off to sleep.

-

Kieren wakes up to a dense fog the next morning. He can barely see ten metres out his window, let alone to Ken and Maggie’s house. He changes his shirt, sticks his feet in his unlaced boots, and storms down to the kitchen where, unlike yesterday, his mother is brewing coffee and asking him how he’d like his eggs.

“Fried,” he says, filling up a mug.

His mum looks at him with a soft smile. “Are you all right, Kieren? You seemed a little down yesterday.”

“Fine,” he says curtly.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m fine.”

Sue arches her eyebrows but says nothing, and cracks an egg over the skillet. The yolk bursts, and she swears mildly.

“Scrambled alright, love?”

“Fine,” says Kieren, who takes a gulp of coffee and nearly chokes.

“Missed you yesterday morning.”

“I got an early start,” he says nonchalantly, with a forced smile.

“That’s my boy,” says Sue. “Your father’s never been an early riser but you and me, up at the crack of dawn and all. Get it from your mum, you do.”

“That’s right,” says Kieren, looking out the window.

Sue smiles. “Now, your sister, she takes after your dad, not even an earthquake could rouse her more than five minutes before she needs to be somewhere, it’s like waking the dead.”

Kieren smiles. “The coffee helps,” he says.

“That it does,” says Sue, turning off the stove.

She sits across from Kieren with her own full-to-the-brim mug of coffee and a scrambled egg on toast. Sue doesn’t speak, but looks at Kieren and opens her mouth as if about to say something, then changes her mind.

Kieren bites his lip and considers whether talking to his mother would be a good idea.

“You know you can tell me anything, Kieren,” she says, as if reading his mind.

“Mm.”

“Your father too. I know he’s not the most receptive person, but he’s very understanding.  _ We _ love you no matter what. Don’t care what it is.”

“Yeah,” says Kieren, looking out the window again, refusing to take his mother’s bait.

“Well, I’ve said my bit.” Sue lapses into silence, and the only sound in the room is that of chewing, both hers and his.

“Better be off,” says Kieren with a forced smile. He picks up his rucksack and takes a last swig of coffee before leaving. He doesn’t look over his shoulder. Sue sighs.

Outside, the fog has begun to clear, but Kieren has left the house wearing nothing but a jumper and he shivers as the cool, humid air makes contact with his skin. Going back to grab a jacket, however, would be giving in, so he goes on.

By the time he reaches the college, most of the fog has melted away, but the clouds, predictably, are still hanging over the valley. Tuesdays Kieren has a digital art course first thing in the morning, and although it’s never been his favourite subject, today he sits down at his desk and starts sketching without overthinking like he always does in this class. They’ve been assigned to draw a landscape, and Kieren has thankfully chosen one that has nothing to do with the woods. It’s the view outside his window, not dissimilar to the one he was drawing yesterday morning. Rolling hills, the houses of Roarton village. Boring, predictable, easy to detail, and guaranteed to snag him a decent mark.

He spends the rest of the class practically in a trance.

At lunch he doodles his own left hand in five different positions before getting bored and drawing the new woman at the register. Then he leaves and sits under a tree, fully aware that he should probably be working on some assignment or another, but thinking instead about what Rick must be doing with his days, now that he’s no longer in school, and drawing a blank. For god’s sake, Kieren should know, their lives diverged like this six months ago, why hasn’t he asked yet?

Kieren has no idea what Rick does all day.

After his painting course, Kieren finds Rick outside the school gate again.

“Look, I’m sorry—“

“Save it,” says Kieren.

“I don’t even know what I did.”

“Take a guess, genius.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How can you be sorry for something you can’t even pin down? You don’t even know what it is that you did, how can you be sorry?”

“I just am.”

“God, Rick, your head is so far up your own arse I don’t know how you can see anything anymore.”

“Ren.”

“I’m just not interested, Rick.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is I did?”

“Not here,” says Kieren, glancing around. He doesn’t have to say where he’ll do it before Rick’s taken off and Kieren is struggling to keep up with him as they climb the hill again. They make it to the mouth of the cave, panting, and Kieren finally says, “What you did was say that you loved me, as though it was the worst thing that has ever happened to you.” He stands facing Rick, arms by his sides, trying to stop himself from shaking.

“That’s not how I meant it, Ren.” Rick stares straight into his eyes, which makes Kieren flinch.

“Really? Because that’s definitely how it sounded.”

“You’re reading too much into things.” Rick looks cross.

Kieren retorts. “Right, although I guess not reading into things would be a luxury I could afford, I don’t know, had your dad not brandished a shotgun to my head—“ here Kieren mimes putting a gun to his own head “—when I was fourteen. Maybe then I’d be comfortable not reading into things. As it stands, Rick, I think kind of need to be a little bit aware of myself.”

“I’m sorry he did that.”

“Are you?”

“How can you even ask that?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know, Rick! I don’t know what kind of person who are when I can’t even recognize you around that man. Who’s the real Rick? I have no idea, maybe I’ve never known him! Maybe the  _ real  _ Rick is the man I see around Bill Macy! I have no way of knowing.”

“You have to trust me, Ren.”

“How can I? How can you expect me to do that?”

“I don’t know, you don’t have to have a reason for trusting somebody. You just do.”

“Sounds nice, that.”

Rick clasps Kieren’s face gently. “Ren, you’re the best thing that could have happened to me. I love you, so much.” This time it sounds genuine, felt, and Kieren backs away from the edge.

“Prove it.”

“I will,” says Rick, and he takes Kieren’s hand gently in his own. He pulls the two of them down from the mouth of the cave, and through the woods, keeping their hands locked tight the whole time.

“What—where are we going?”

“Just trust me,” says Rick.

Kieren’s pulse is racing, and he has no idea what is going on or whether he can even trust Rick. But he has to make that choice, here and now, and he chooses to do it, following him on the twists and turns through the churchyard and making sure not to trip on the undergrowth.

Rick is walking almost but not quite too fast for Kieren to keep up, and soon he realizes exactly where Rick is taking him. A wave of terror buckles his body. “Rick, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can.”

“Maybe you can.”

“You can too.”

“Your dad will actually kill me, you know that, right?”

“Not if he has to kill me first.”

“How can you be so sure, Rick?  _ How can you be sure? _ ”

“I just am!” he says, and they’re

on the doorstep of the Legion, hands still intertwined, Rick with that shit-eating grin on his face, looking as though the world is the most wonderful, beautiful thing that he’s ever seen. As though he’s completely unaware that the two of them are about to get eaten alive by whoever’s in that pub.

Rick pushes the door open, walks in, and it’s worse than Kieren could have possibly imagined. He can feel his pulse beating a hundred times faster than in should. He feels as though he heart is about to explode out of his chest as he sees, at the snooker table, Gary and Bill, and seated in front of the bar a few witnesses from the village, old women who’ve never liked Kieren.

“What’s the meaning of this?” asks Bill Macy, paused in the middle of a round of snooker, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He would be comical, frozen in place, looking shocked, if similar looks hadn’t always precipitated acts of violence on Bill’s part.

Rick is grasping Kieren’s hand so tightly that he’s stopped feeling his fingertips. Bill’s eyes flicker between Kieren and Rick and Kieren can see realizations dawn on his face, realizations that Kieren doesn’t like one bit.

“I’ve told you,” he says quietly, “not to touch or go near my son.”

“I—“ Kieren starts, but Rick interrupts him.

“It was my idea,” says Rick. “I was the one.”

“Nonsense,” says Bill, “no son of mine—“

“Yes, your son.”

“No.” Bill pulls the lit cigarette out of his mouth and stubs it out on the snooker table. Kieren hears Pearl stifle a wimper, but she doesn’t dare tell Bill Macy to be more careful with her property, not when he’s in a state like this. “No, I refuse to believe this. You’ve been corrupted by this  _ thing,  _ he’s twisted and warped your mind, made you unnatural-like.”

“No,” says Rick. “I’ve always been like this. Stop blaming Kieren for what  _ I _ am, dad.”

Bill slams his cue on the table with a force that makes Kieren flinch. His hand is still clasped tightly in Rick’s. Bill looks straight into Kieren’s eyes. “Disgusting, that’s what you are. How  _ dare  _ you interfere with  _ my  _ son, my normal, wonderful son, and make him like  _ you. _ ”

Kieren wants nothing more than to run away from this situation forever and leave Roarton, not in eighteen months, but today.

“Look,” he says to Gary, face broken with a sadistic grin. “He’s scared shitless.” He looks back at Kieren. “I’ll kill you. Did you consider that when you and my son were—when you were—when—did you ever think of that, Kieren Walker, that I could kill you and no one in this town would bat an eye, did you ever think of that?”

Kieren thinks he might be about to cry, but he won’t do it, he can’t, not here. He might also be about to get murdered, he thinks as Bill Macy stares him down, and closes the distance between the two of them with two wide steps. Bill grabs Kieren by the collar of his shirt and hoists him up to his eye-level. Bill’s eyes look even more terrifying and soulless this close-up.

“My god, Bill,” says Pearl, somewhat lazily. “That’s enough.” She’s polishing a glass, keeping an uninterested eye on what’s going on, but for whatever reason has decided it’s passed the threshold of what she’ll tolerate in her pub. 

“Whatever it takes to make sure that this  _ thing  _ stays away from my son,” retorts Bill, and spits in Kieren’s face. It drips down from his forehead to his nose, and Kieren filches at the clamminess of it. His eyes are closed now, but he hears a glass slam down and several heavy footsteps making their way over.

“Bill, he’s just a boy.”

“He’s a boy that does more and more perverted damage to my son every day that goes by.”

“Leave him be, Bill.”

“I will, soon as he promises to never speak to my son again.”

Pearl’s voice is quivering. Kieren can tell she wishes she had never interfered. There’s pressure on the back of his neck, he feels as though he’s choking. “It’s not like I care that much about him, Bill, but he’s more trouble than he’s worth. What are you going to do, kill him?”

“Might as well.”

“He’s not worth it, Bill,” says Gary from across the room. Kieren hears a cue clatter against a snooker ball. 

“You’re right,” says Bill, and he releases Kieren in one smooth motion. Kieren, who isn’t braced for it, crumples to the ground. Bill gives him a kick, not enough to hurt, but enough to scare him. “That’s right, boy, just lie down and take it.”

Kieren positions one collapsed leg, and then a hand, in the right place to prop himself back up, shaking and weak though he is. He straightens up, ignores his throbbing knee, and stares Bill Macy right in the eye. Bill’s eyelid twitches. Then, Kieren surprises himself, musters up all the courage he has left for the day, and says “fuck you, Bill.”

Bill raises a hand. “Aye, that’s the last straw—“

“Enough!” says Pearl, storming back over. “Kieren. For Christ’s sake, god knows I’m not fond of you. Stay  _ out  _ of the Legion.”

“But—“

“No. You’re banned for life. Don’t come back here, don’t go stirring up trouble, and for god’s sake stop provoking Bill Macy for no good reason. Go home. Don’t come back here.” She gives him a smack across the face that both surprises and stings. “That’s for causing trouble in my pub. I never want to see you here again.”

“Pearl—“

“Enough. Get out.” She points towards the door. “Final warning. Banned for life. I’ll put it in writing, if you think I’m not serious.” 

Kieren takes five quick paces and slams the door on his way out. As he stumbles down the stairs, adrenaline pumping, he can hear Pearl admonishing Bill Macy, as though from far off. He’s in a daze, and wanders back home. Once there, he pulls a package of frozen peas out of the freezer first thing to soothe the bruise Pearl has left on his cheek.

His mother is sitting in the salon, reading, and calls over. “Oh my, you’re back early today, expected you’d be out with—oh my god, Kieren, what happened?” 

“Got banned for life from the Legion,” he says with a slight air of awe, pressing the peas against his face.

She stands up and walks over, lifting the peas to see the damage. “Oh my god, what did you do?”

Kieren shrugs. “Provoked Bill Macy one last time.”

Sue gives her son a squeeze on the shoulder. “Oh, Christ, Kieren, how many times have I told you to stay out of that man’s hair?”

“One time too few, I guess,” he says distantly, staring out the kitchen window to the hills beyond.  

  
  



End file.
